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Two teams, Gujarat Fortunegiants and Haryana Steelers, who’ve had contrasting starts to their campaigns, faced off in Wednesday’s Pro Kabaddi League encounter. It turned out to be one of the best games of the season so far. The nail-biting match ended 27-27 after 40 minutes.
Surjeet Singh was the star of the night, scoring an impressive six points. This, despite the fact that Haryana coach, Rambir Singh Khokhar, decided to not start him for tonight’s game. Surjeet received the Man of the Match award and the coach revealed the reason behind benching Surjeet at the start.
“Surjeet is our star raider but he has just come back from an injury. It’s been one year since his injury. That’s why we wanted to give him some rest because he was under a little pressure playing his first match.”
“But whenever we needed him, I used him according to the situation. I cannot say that he is 100% fit, but he is definitely 90% fit now. It was a timely substitution,” he added.
At one point, Gujarat were leading 11-8 and only had Mohit Chhillar and Surender Nada on the opposition mat to take care of. Unfortunately for them, the Steelers duo were absolutely watertight at the back and didn’t give Gujarat’s raiders an inch on the mat. Captain, Surender, revealed the logic behind their approach when they were the only two men remaining on the mat.
“Mohit and I had decided that we would only tackle when Gujarat’s raiders attacked us. If they’re out of our zone, we didn’t want to attempt a tackle, because the lead might then increase even more. We decided to play on the third raid,” he explained.
Asked whether he reckons opposition raiders are a little scared when they face him and Mohit, Surender had an interesting reply. He believes that every raider in the league feels the pressure when he and Chhillar are on the mat at the same time.
“Everyone knows that Mohit and I are a great combination, so there is bound to be pressure on the opposition raiders. They attack very less when the both of us are on the mat, they try and get a touch point. When they try a bonus, they always wonder what would happen if me or Mohit end up tackling them,” he said as he signed off.
